Dance Listings for Nov. 23-29

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (Wednesday and Thursday; through Dec. 30) The company’s annual City Center run opens with audience favorites old and new on Wednesday: Ailey’s classic “Revelations,” which should be all the more rousing with live music (it is gala night, after all, and the special guests include Anika Noni Rose, Brian Stokes Mitchell and Jessye Norman), and Ohad Naharin’s propulsive “Minus 16,” which joined the repertory last year. That repertory continues to expand under Robert Battle, in his second season as artistic director. If the options seem overwhelming (25 works spanning 39 programs over five weeks), there’s now a Web site to help you decide what to see, ask.alvinailey.org. The sleek user-friendliness seems a fitting gateway to the Ailey experience. Wednesday at 7 p.m., Thursday at 8 p.m., City Center, 131 West 55th Street, Manhattan, (212) 581-1212, nycitycenter.org; $25 to $175. (Siobhan Burke)

Complexions Contemporary Ballet (Friday through Sunday) You have to hand it to Dwight Rhoden and Desmond Richardson, who founded Complexions Contemporary Ballet in 1994. The company is still making audiences cheer, whatever critics might say about Mr. Rhoden’s hyperactively athletic choreography. The company’s two-week season includes older works and two new pieces by Mr. Rhoden: “The Curve” and “Subject to Change,” set to music by Elew. Another new work, “Flight,” a male duet to Bach, is by Jae Man Joo, and the talented Camille A. Brown offers a new piece, “Memories.” Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 2 and 8 p.m., Sunday at 2 and 7:30 p.m., Joyce Theater, 175 Eighth Avenue, at 19th Street, Chelsea, (212) 242-0800, joyce.org; $10 to $59. (Roslyn Sulcas)

‘The Dance Historian Is In’ (Wednesday) The dance historian is David Vaughan, former archivist for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, and for his monthly film screening and discussion he presents two versions of Cunningham’s “Beach Birds” — one created for camera, the other for the stage. He will be joined by the filmmaker Elliot Caplan. At 2 p.m., New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center, third floor screening room, 40 Lincoln Center Plaza, (212) 870-1656, nypl.org; free (online R.S.V.P. is recommended). (Burke)

Lucy Guerin (Tuesday through Dec. 1) How do untrained movers stack up against dancers with years of experience? In “Untrained,” Ms. Guerin, an Australian choreographer with roots in the New York contemporary dance scene of the 1990s, invites us to appreciate the kinesthetic intelligence of both amateurs and experts, who tackle the same tasks side by side. This United States premiere is being presented as part of the Next Wave Festival. At 7:30 p.m., Robert B. Fisher Building, Brooklyn Academy of Music, 321 Ashland Place, near Lafayette Avenue, Fort Greene, Brooklyn, (718) 636-4100, bam.org; $20. (Burke)

★ Deborah Hay (Thursday through Dec. 1) Following her controversial work at the Museum of Modern Art this month (the racially segregated cast was just one of several questionable artistic choices), any piece by Ms. Hay is charged in a way that it wouldn’t have been 10 weeks ago, when Danspace Project began its Judson Now platform, a 50th-anniversary reflection on Judson Dance Theater. A founding member of Judson, Ms. Hay closes the series with “As Holy Sites Go/duet,” in which Jeanine Durning and Ros Warby undertake what she calls “catastrophic acts of perception.” At 8 p.m., Danspace Project, St. Mark’s Church, 131 East 10th Street, East Village, (866) 811-4111, danspaceproject.org; $18. (Burke)

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★ New York City Ballet (Friday through Sunday, and Thursday; through Dec. 30) It’s that time of year again, when the resplendent costumes, sets and choreography for George Balanchine’s “Nutcracker” come out of storage and onto the David H. Koch Theater stage. If you haven’t seen this production, what are you waiting for? You have over a month to get yourself to the theater. Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 2 and 8 p.m., Sunday at 1 and 5 p.m., Thursday at 6 p.m., Lincoln Center, (212) 496-0600, nycballet.com; $29 to $225. (Burke)

★ Tere O’Connor Dance (Tuesday through Dec. 1) Early drafts of Mr. O’Connor’s “poem” and “Secret Mary” (seen at the Gibney Dance Center and River to River Festival) offered a glimpse into the mind-bendingly complex material that he’s bringing to New York Live Arts. In these related pieces — two of three parts that he’ll ultimately collapse into a fourth — outpourings of physical invention stream together, an ineffable logic running through them. Getting swept up in that logic, along with Mr. O’Connor’s brilliant dancers, is one of the profound pleasures of watching his work. At 7:30 p.m., New York Live Arts, 219 West 19th Street, Chelsea, (212) 924-0077, newyorklivearts.org; $15 to $30, $24 for students and 65+. (Burke)

Aki Sasamoto (Wednesday through Dec. 1) As a performer, Ms. Sasamoto has an intriguingly inward focus; whatever ideas she’s burrowing into, you want to burrow with her. As a sculptor and choreographer, she puts objects and moving bodies into strange, surprising dialogue. Those dimensions of her work will most likely convene in “Centripetal Run,” a new piece exploring parallels between intangible forces large and small, or, as the press materials put it, “between gray situations in personal lives and electromagnetic radiation that forms the universe.” Her collaborators include Matt Bauder (music), Madeline Best (lighting), Pau Atela (sculpture) and Arturo Vidich (performance). At 8 p.m., Chocolate Factory, 5-49 49th Avenue, Long Island City, Queens, (212) 352-3101, chocolatefactorytheater.org; $15. (Burke)

Sally Silvers (Wednesday through Dec. 1) An experimentalist who’s been embracing the awkward for decades, Ms. Silvers turns to a more mainstream source of inspiration — the musicals of Stephen Sondheim — in “Bonobo Milkshake,” her first large ensemble work since 2009. Which isn’t to say the results won’t be as playful and absurd as her past works: among her influences are various forms of competitive and recreational movement (synchronized swimming, ice dancing, roller derby), as interpreted by terrific performers like Christopher Williams, Jon Kinzel, Daniel Madoff and many others. At 8 p.m., Roulette, 509 Atlantic Avenue, near Third Avenue, Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, (917) 267-0363, roulette.org; $15, $10 for students and 65+. (Burke)